The Blue Lantern project is a response to a future catastrophic event. It is the preparation for a “great flood”. The intention of this installation is to build a conveyance to house our response to helplessness and survival in this world. The artists involved in the project will create an environment that reconnects the importance of oral and written histories toward always incomplete understanding of the natural world. Using book art, artifacts, performance art, and an audio/ visual installation, the Blue Lantern Project is an artistic collaboration focused on the idea of an imminent cataclysm.



This one month installation includes the building of a wooden boat by Tulsa artist James Gallagher and friends at Individual Artists of Oklahoma (IAO) Gallery in Oklahoma City from January 4th to 14th. During the ten days of construction, the artist will live and work inside the gallery space. By doing such an unexpected process the artist hopes to interact with all quarters of the community, laborers, materials, and conversation. Alongside the boat, a blue lantern also will be assembled and will incorporate image and sound to the environment. When completed, the artists will have created two rooms inside the gallery. One space will contain evidence of the flood as past, present, and future event. It will be laid out as documentation in the form of art, writing, artifacts and ephemera. The material for this room will be placed on walls and floor and in vitrines. There will also be free standing sculptural work. The other room will be dedicated to the preparation and construction of a boat. The boat will be constructed out of new and found material, wood, bitumen, indigo, metal and glass. Its construction will acknowledge man’s universal preoccupation with the flood. At the same time the construction will bring to light the historic relevance of materials used to free as well as subjugate man.



On Friday, January 14th from 6-9pm during the opening reception, the audiences will join in the creation of sound and images by media artist Sam Fredrickson, a series of books record the ancient great flood by artist Jeff Hogue, and "Book of Four" by James and Yiren Gallagher will also be displayed echoing the spirit of the past.



The Blue Lantern was originally conceived of for an installation at Living Arts Gallery of Tulsa in 2008. The Blue Lantern is to be viewed as taking a conceptual journey from the hand of one person and placing it into the currents of the unknown: a place of flood, death, mystery, and life.

Website: www.iaogallery.org

Categories: Exhibits